Sunday, November 22, 2015

“That day: There was no meeting. There were no hushed conversations. No one called others for discussions. Everyone was calm and quiet. The thought of stopping work and cleaning ones hands 45 minutes before lunch hour came to each one on the shop floor.”

From this month we will meet every Sunday at the Majdoor Library, which has been freshly repainted and looking very nice. You are welcome to bring a plant.
Address: Majdoor Library, Autopin Jhuggi, Faridabad - 121001.
Phone: 0129-6567014
Metro to Neelam Chowk (Violet Line), then a shared auto to Bata Chowk, and a short walk through thermal power plant.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

“Thoughts of a Few Temporary Workers”, front page of the April 2015 issue of FMS, has generated many conversations. A group of factory workers called from Nagpur praising the workers’ words and ideas. We hear a Bangla translation has been published. An art student associated with ‘Gulf Labour’ feels it’s expedient that there be, and has promised, an English translation. Reading it, people who work in, or have worked in, factories have felt an electric excitement. To one friend these workers exemplify the highest form of expression of being a worker in the world today. Another said they have posed the most expansive and universal condition of being a worker in the present. And, not unexpectedly, political groups have reached out to the Majdoor Library to condemn the workers’ words and actions.

This excitement, so much support, strong opposition, together. Why? It’s a response to the vibrant and expressive confidence of these workers. This confidence comes from their expansive capacities. These capacities are both qualities and wagers. Here’s a beginning list:

(C)
- Capacity to de-operationalise and disrupt settled assumptions of distinctions between speaker and listener
- Capacity to puncture pompousness
- Capacity, and courage, to interrupt and talk back

(D)
- Capacity for taking flexible, egoless steps
- Capacity to take these steps with a measure of ones strength
- Capacity to make adjustments when there are errors, and stay open to new experiments
- Capacity to take steps as person, team, group, gathering, network

(E)
- Capacity for simplicity and intensity, straightforwardness and complexity
- Capacity of generosity for sources of ideas and resources
- Capacity to soak in a diversity of suggestions and a range of advice
- Capacity for listening to everyone yet acting according to own reading of situations